#the burning martian turns j'onn misogynistic in the comics

[jesncin]

Sons of Mars refs and nods pt2

Compilation of research, references, and nods Sons of Mars pulled from the comics!

This younger design of Ma'al takes reference from Ma'alefa'ak's original outfit design with the single shoulder pad, gold chains, and boots. I mostly took from the JLA: Classified (issue 43) design (written by Justin Gray, art by Rick Leonardi and Sean Philips).

The Burning Martian is from JLA 1997 (issue 84-89): Trial by Fire (written by Joe Kelly, drawn by Doug Mahnke). In that story, J'onn overcomes his fear of fire, but it turns him into an ancient raging evil fire creature that pre-dates the green and white martians. For our story, we took that concept and applied it to Ma'al.

The comics establish Ma'al as the only martian immune to fire, but the concept isn't really taken advantage of, and we wanted to push it further by linking him to the Burning Martians.

Ma'al being crafty with chemicals and inventing while working in a lab all day is a lil nod to his origin story too :)

H'ronmeer's curse! A staple to most of J'onn's origin's stories- it's a fire virus that wipes out all the martians, usually (but not always) invented by Ma'alefa'ak. In our version, H'ronmeer's curse is more like a really intense hysteria-storm instead of a killer virus.

D'kay D'razz is from Brightest Day: All This Useless Beauty (written by Geoff Johns and Peter J Tomasi, art by Patrick Gleason, Scott Clark, Ivan Reis, Jo Prado). She's a scientist who was imprisoned for proposing an inhumane method for tracking down and purging non-telepath Martians (or at least martians who "could only read minds but not be read by other martians").

J'onn menacingly meeting D'kay is a homage to how he meets her in Brightest Day.

D'kay's motivation to basically eugenically "fix" disabled Martians is pulled straight from Brightest Day! We wanted to echo how D'kay violates other martians for truth and transparency in our story too.

Considering the themes of disability and eugenics being a part of both Ma'alefa'ak and D'kay's stories, I'm surprised these two characters haven't been in some way paired in a narrative to bounce off of each other before.

Little nod to In my Life (pt 3) in the caption box :)

Some of the architecture and flora near the Temple of the Great Mind is inspired off of the martian flashbacks in Dark Knights of Steel (written by Tom Taylor, art by Yasmine Putri).

That's all I can fit into this post! One more post coming up covering the final scenes :>

Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3